Comment on Transitioning in STEM
sureok@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
I transitioned to male 15 years ago, I was already well into adulthood by that time so had experience to compare. 100% agree with the post. It was night and day. (I’m not in Stem; just generally in life.)
The weirdest thing was some of the individual people who changed how they treat me over time, for the better. After I started transitioning. Its cool they are so trans positive and affirming I guess. But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?
Now as a man I struggle to notice when I’m getting special treatment. Even with my prior experience. Sometimes I have been oblivious for years until I finally clocked it or it was pointed out by a woman.
It has made me much more respect cis men who manage to have a keen eye on sexism. Especially those who are masc presenting. It is so easy to not notice. It’s very comfortable. People are polite. You have good luck. To all the guys commenting here that it doesn’t go on around them: it sure as fuck does.
Now as a man I struggle to notice when I’m getting special treatment. Even with my prior experience.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m usually in communities where - as far as I know - people treat women equally. (Or in different culture communities, so that’s a whole different area.) So I tend not to notice if there’s special treatment for men. This will remind me to be more aware.
Sometimes we should just, I dk, listen to what people that have different experiences to us say. I figure, I have no idea what it is like to question my gender, so maybe I should shut the fuck up and listen to what people who do tell me.
Not him or transmasc, but as a trans woman, gender doesn’t influence how bad someone is, but it does influence how they are bad. Transphobia (directed at trans women) from cis men often looks like disgust and direct violence as well as oversexualization. There’s also an element of seeing themselves as knights in shining armor to cis women. From cis women it’s more likely to look like ostracization, backstabbing, and calling for men’s protection.
If you noticed that that’s how cis men and women tend to treat cis women they hate, congratulations, you’ve figured out why one common refrain from trans women is that transmisogyny is a form of misogyny.
shut the fuck up and listen
But dont need to turn off your brain. There are plenty of dumb trans people out there and you can find a trans person to represent any position.
Is there one gender friendlier to trans people?
I doubt it. It depends. I mean, women are friendlier, in general. It depends. And trans men are more likely to be “passing” living stealth. So its a different thing. I hardly know what anyone thinks of trans people unless I ask, because 99% of interactions I have are as presumed cis.
One thing I know is that everyone loves men. Cis men, trans men, doesnt matter. People value men. This is why all kinds of anti trans horseshit specifically targets trans women. In the UK recently there was a ruling about the definition of “woman” as it relates to trans women. But no definition of “man”. Why! Why are only women subject to such shit. Trans men are implicitly pulled in and adversely affected but women are the ones who have the law about their bodies.
In the UK recently there was a ruling about the definition of “woman” as it relates to trans women. But no definition of “man”. Why!
I think that’s also largely because it’s women who feel vulnerable with men in their ‘intimate’/‘private’ places like bathrooms or sleeping spaces - not so much for men. So questions like, “will the prison rules make this person share a room with me on the basis of their self-identification as a woman” are more of a concern for women than for men.
And of course efforts aimed at elevating women in e.g. STEM. If you have a women’s tech group, or a women’s gaming group, giving special help to women because their gender puts them at a disadvantage, do you, should you, must you, include trans women? That’s going to come up about women not about men. Men’s groups of these days tend to be much less relevant.
I agree the ruling should have considered both genders equally though. Actually, does it not? Or was it just the discussion, not the actual ruling, that was all women-focused not men?
It is only about trans women. The discussion, the case etc. As usual.
www.bbc.com/news/live/cvgq9ejql39t
It came about after the Scottish government included transgender women in quotas to ensure gender balance on public sector boards.
Trans women experience all the opposite of what trans men do. Their status plummets on transition. They experience more violence abuse and harassment than cis men, trans men or cis women. The idea of excluding them from women’s stuff is ignorant.
As to people “feeling safe”, people “feel unsafe” for lots of reasons. Differences in perceived race, sexual orientation, disabilities so forth. Perceived gender variance is only one reason. Should we segregate sleeping spaces by race?
On the other hand, I guess I can take advantage of these things and these spaces?? I’m assigned female at birth. I’m a biological woman?? Nobody would guess to look at me. And as I’ve been saying I’ve had many years of male privilege. But if we’re checking documents, well nobody can argue with me if I want to. Nor with the OP.
Interesting, cheers mate.
Trans masc person checking in. Might be my bias or community or something but I get way less misgendering by guys under 30 than basically any other demographic. They seem to pick it up faster and be really chill about it in ways that a lot of the women in my life really don’t seem to get as comfortable with.
But there is definitely a part of my brain that sees men as being of my tribe in ways that women are not. Like not to say that I don’t have incredible women in my life whom I have incredibly close bonds with… But there’s definitely some kind of cognitive distance that has always kind of been there.
I think trans femmes might experience a similar situation with feeling accepted by women but to answer your question about if the bros are alright… Yeah, they good.
I think this is a huge problem even with people that would say about themselves that they respect women, or even that they are feminist. A lot of men on the left suffer from a total absence of introspection. They may not want to treat women differently, but then they just repeat patterns they have learned without any reflection, and end up doing just that - talk over women, mansplaining to them and so on. It’s the same with any privileged group of people.
Men/white people/other privileged groups: if you do not reflect your actions and question your own thought patterns and influences, you will likely discriminate against others. Because the wold that influences us is total dogshite. Strife to be better.
Right. There’s so much we do automatically, behaviours we’ve picked up from our culture, or are condoned by our culture, that we don’t realise are discriminating.
But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?
I would think because they aren’t aware of it.
preach. it is for reasons such as what you stated that i fully give my blessing to women transitioning to men. level the playing field by any means necessary. this is survival.
i try to embrace my male archetype because i think the worlds needs strong men, but i have come to understand the feminist perspective and i don’t think there’s any conflict with masculine men being empathetic. as a matter of fact, i think a truly confident man doesn’t need to worry about being vulnerable and is in touch with their feelings. the macho american culture is not who we are. it is an aberration directly resulting from abrahamic religious values being hijacked by sociopaths to pave the way for authoritarianism and further subjugation of women.
and i think it’s up to all of us to break these insecure macho idiots down into kneeling before a new age of humanity. make them heel to understand that they were weaklings all along.
Just to be clear: women do not transition to men to level the playing field or materially benefit themselves.
Studies of post transition income show that trans women go down (sometimes drastically) whereas trans men tend to stay about where they would have been. You get benefits of being treated as male but then you have discrimination and other problems as a queer/trans person to balance it out. So while I can report on the moments when socially and structurally I am treated as a man, it isn’t the total experience if my life. I still am trans. There are significant problems associated. I wouldn’t reccomend it as a career enhancer. To say nothing of how unpleasant transitioning just in hopes of getting a raise would feel.
I agree with regards to masculinity.
yes. you’re right. i understand that it’s more than that and that it’s not really viable as an economic strategy, but i like to show support where i honestly can.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I think people get defense around the idea of “male privilege” because they think it’s getting them something extra. It’s more all of the shit you don’t have to deal with.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Exactly. As a teenager I hated the concept. Partly because I’d been bullied for failing to perform masculinity as a child, partly because I was not happy with the whole boy thing, but also because all the shit so many cis men say.
But when I transitioned I saw it. And I saw trans men starting to receive the privilege I was losing.